Silence. She held his eyes, and her jaw worked. But she couldn’t force it out. “It isn’t proper,” she finally said, “for our emperor to walk into battle. It violates tradition.” “I’ve been around enough scribes to know you make tradition. My father and I disagree on a number of things, but there’s one point on which we do agree: any man, anywhere, should have the right to pick up the spear or sword and fight for what he believes in. If you deny Yanagawn that, you deny him manhood itself.”
